“I miss the retreats. They were a place where you could be out, have fun. A place to be educated and rejuvenated. A place where sisterhood was built. Women from smaller places would have no place to build sisterhood. Retreats were almost like a holy day. A place where you forget you are HIV+ and just have fun.”

“In the evenings it was party time. Karaoke. The point was that we were celebrating being together another year. We’d all had our trials, butthe retreats were the highlight. There’s nothing like that now. The importance of that didn’t seem to be understood. It’s left so many women isolated and marginalized.”